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Stephanie Wittels Wachs

Comedian Harris Wittels, the author's younger brother, was only 30 when he tragically succumbed to opioid addiction. In this harrowing, heartbreaking, and cathartic memoir, Wachs recounts the ways her little brother lit up the world. Written as a love letter or a eulogy for Harris himself to hear, the book alternates between the periods immediately before and after his horrific overdose in 2015. Wachs was a newlywed then, raising a two-year-old and teaching theater at the high school she and her brother had both attended. Wachs examines how Harris unraveled just as she was coming into her own and meditates on the difficulty of helping a high-functioning addict.

K.A. Barson

Aspiring to run a beauty salon with her best friend, high school junior Charlotte enrolls in a cosmetology program while hoping to win a fashion competition in order to establish her reputation, an ambition that prompts a bet with her mother, who wants her go to college instead

Max Brooks

An account of the decade-long conflict between humankind and hordes of the predatory undead is told from the perspective of dozens of survivors who describe in their own words the epic human battle for survival.

Matt de La Pena

Taking a summer job on a Pacific luxury cruise liner to help his struggling family, Shy anticipates a season of lucrative tips and pretty girlfriends only to have everything radically transformed by a massive California earthquake that jeopardizes the survival of everyone he knows.

David Levithan

A (his only name) has a secret. Each morning he wakes up in a different body and life. Sometimes he is a boy, sometimes a girl; sometimes he is gay, sometimes straight; sometimes he is ill, more often well. The only unchanging facts are that he is always 16, and it is a different persona he "borrows" each day. It has always been this way for him, though he doesn't know why it should be. He does know that it is imperative that he do nothing to change his host's life, until he meets Rhiannon and, for the first time, falls in love.

Amy Lukavics

When sixteen-year-old Amanda Verner's family decides to move from their small mountain cabin to the vast prairie, she hopes it is her chance for a fresh start. She can leave behind the memory of the past winter; of her sickly ma giving birth to a baby sister who cries endlessly; of the terrifying visions she saw as her sanity began to slip, the victim of cabin fever; and most of all, the memories of the boy she has been secretly meeting with as a distraction from her pain. The boy whose baby she now carries.

When the Verners arrive at their new home, a large cabin abandoned by its previous owners, they discover the inside covered in blood. And as the days pass, it is obvious to Amanda that something isn't right on the prairie. She's heard stories of lands being tainted by evil, of men losing their minds and killing their families, and there is something strange about the doctor and his son who live in the woods on the edge of the prairie. But with the guilt and shame of her sins weighing on her, Amanda can't be sure if the true evil lies in the land, or deep within her soul.

Karen McManus

It's a murder mystery, Breakfast Club-style: five students from different social spheres walk into detention. Only four walk out. Simon, the outcast at the helm of the high school's brutal (and always true) gossip app has been murdered, and he had dirt on all four students in detention with him. Brainy good-girl Bronwyn knows she didn't kill Simon, and she doesn't think drug-dealing Nate, everyone's favorite suspect, did either. Simon knew something that could ruin homecoming princess Addy's perfect relationship, but Addy's always been so timid. And baseball superstar Cooper has a secret, but it's not what Simon said, and everyone knows Simon was never wrong. Trailed by suspicion, the four team up to clear their names-and find the real ­killer-even as proving their innocence becomes increasingly more difficult.

Gretchen McNeil

WELCOME TO THE NEAR FUTURE, where good and honest citizens can enjoy watching the executions of society's most infamous convicted felons, streaming live on The Postman app from the suburbanized prison island Alcatraz 2.0.

When seventeen-year-old Dee Guerrera wakes up in a haze, lying on the ground of a dimly lit warehouse, she realizes she's about to be the next victim of the app. Knowing hardened criminals are getting a taste of their own medicine in this place is one thing, but Dee refuses to roll over and die for a heinous crime she didn't commit. Can Dee and her newly formed posse, the Death Row Breakfast Club, prove she's innocent before she ends up wrongfully murdered for the world to see? Or will The Postman's cast of executioners kill them off one by one?

Gary Schmidt

It's a murder mystery, Breakfast Club-style: five students from different social spheres walk into detention. Only four walk out. Simon, the outcast at the helm of the high school's brutal (and always true) gossip app has been murdered, and he had dirt on all four students in detention with him. Brainy good-girl Bronwyn knows she didn't kill Simon, and she doesn't think drug-dealing Nate, everyone's favorite suspect, did either. Simon knew something that could ruin homecoming princess Addy's perfect relationship, but Addy's always been so timid. And baseball superstar Cooper has a secret, but it's not what Simon said, and everyone knows Simon was never wrong. Trailed by suspicion, the four team up to clear their names-and find the real ­killer-even as proving their innocence becomes increasingly more difficult.

Neal Shusterman

In a time not far distant, life is deemed to be sacrosanct from the instant of conception until the age of 13. From 13 to 18, however, parents and guardians have the opportunity to have children "unwound." Technically, life doesn't end, but every part of the child is "harvested" to be parceled out and passed on to the highest bidder. In this gruesome age of organ harvest, readers meet Connor (doomed to be unwound by his parents), Risa (doomed as a ward of the state due to overcrowding) and Lev, a tithe, conceived for the express purpose of being unwound and "donated" to society. Their story of escape and struggle to survive in a society that lauds itself on the protection of life, but which has reduced human body parts to market commodities, unrolls against a bleak background of indifference, avarice, guilt, regret, loss, pain and rebellion.

Andrew Smith

Austin Szerba narrates the end of humanity as he and his best friend Robby accidentally unleash an army of giant, unstoppable bugs and uncover the secrets of a decades-old experiment gone terribly wrong.

Alexander Gordon Smith

When fourteen-year-old Alex is framed for murder, he becomes an inmate in the Furnace Penitentiary, where brutal inmates and sadistic guards reign, boys who disappear in the middle of the night sometimes return weirdly altered, and escape might just be possible.

Courtney Summers

Sadie hasn't had an easy life. Growing up on her own, she's been raising her sister Mattie in an isolated small town, trying her best to provide a normal life and keep their heads above water. But when Mattie is found dead, Sadie's entire world crumbles. After a somewhat botched police investigation, Sadie is determined to bring her sister's killer to justice and hits the road following a few meager clues to find him. When West McCray--a radio personality working on a segment about small, forgotten towns in America--overhears Sadie's story at a local gas station, he becomes obsessed with finding the missing girl. He starts his own podcast as he tracks Sadie's journey, trying to figure out what happened, hoping to find her before it's too late.

Rick Geary

A graphic novel account of the murder trial of Lizzie Borden who was accused of murdering her parents in a vicious attack with an ax in Fall River, Massachusetts, in 1892.